The Agora Ministry seeks to inspire & train laypeople in the marketplace to live out and proclaim the lordship of Christ over every domain of their life.
The Greek agora, or marketplace, was where citizens could meet to discuss issues of the day - ethics, life, faith and philosophy. A Ministry for the Malaysian church by CDPC. Subscribe To Agora Today!

Saturday, November 28, 2009

Audio Sermon on 1 Peter 3:13-16 Giving The Reason For Our Hope can be downloaded here. We need to communicate the gospel clearly, lovingly and compellingly by being thoughtful, informed, honest and humble ambassadors for Christ. We embody the gospel with our lives and declare the gospel with our words. We need to show the world a community worth seeing and a faith worth thinking about.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

He holds a Phd in Theology from University of Nottingham, UK and wrote a monograph on Confronting the Will-To-Power: A Reconsideration of the Theology of Reinhold Niebuhr. He now lectures in STM and working with Christians in the marketplace to integrate faith and business.

Friday, November 20, 2009

Malaysia takes pride in being a culturally diverse and multiethnic nation which has been spared from violent conflicts that have beset neighboring Indonesia and Thailand. Like the local delicacy called ‘rojak’, our religious context is a potent mix of various ingredients that rivals that of Athens during the days of Apostle Paul. However it does not mean that our national psyche is completely free from dark memories of May 13 riots and uneasy tensions about our status as an ‘Islamic state’. On the contrary, these repressed memories have a habit of returning to haunt us whenever ‘sensitive’ religious issues enter public discourse. On such rare occasions, citizens are dutifully reminded, under threat of the Internal Security Act, how easy it is for the religious ‘rojak’ to degenerate into something less tasteful.

What Is Pluralism?

In such a delicate scenario, the Malaysian church needs to carefully consider how to relate with other religious communities and consequently, her task of mission. While we are obviously living in a world with diverse religious perspectives, religious pluralism is a particular view that these religions are equally valid in terms of access to truth and effectiveness in salvation. This view is illustrated beautifully by the ancient story of ten blind men trying to describe an elephant after touching different parts of its body for the first time. As they announced their conflicting discoveries, a heated argument ensued. Awakened by the quarrel, the king corrected all of them by saying, “The elephant is a huge animal and each of you touched a part. In order to know the whole truth about what the elephant looks like, you must put together all the parts!” The moral of the story is that no religion has privileged access to the whole truth. Each religious view is a partial experience of the same Reality from its own culturally-conditioned perspective.

This view is popular because tolerance towards all religions is needed to ward off violent fundamentalism in the wake of post-911 ‘war on terror’. However, pluralism is not as religiously ‘neutral’ as it may appear to be. At face-value, it has been historically the view of particular religions like Buddhism, Hinduism and Bahai faith. In contrast, Islam and Christianity historically held to the finality of divine revelation in Koran and Jesus respectively. More recently, though, John Hick is a prominent Christian theologian who called for a Copernican revolution in which the universe of faiths are seen as centered on God, instead of Christ, whose Light is reflected in all major world religions. He unpacked the pluralistic hypothesis that “the great world faiths embody different perceptions and concepts of, and correspondingly different responses to, the Real from within the major variant ways of being human, and that within each of them the transformation of human existence from self-centeredness to Reality-centredness is taking place. These traditions are accordingly to be regarded as alternative soteriological ‘spaces’ within, or ‘ways’ along which, men and women can find salvation/liberation /ultimate fulfillment.”

Thursday, November 19, 2009

From Kairos: The current mindset of the public towards environmental protection is much too simplistic, with most people relying only on two key factors in their consumer choices: recyclability and biodegradability.

Too much faith is placed in recycling as a solution to the increasing mountains of trash being generated. Firstly, not everything is easily recyclable (as in the case of assorted plastics), or is worth recycling (whether from an energy consumption point of view or in terms of the cost factor). Other factors such as concern for hygiene may also deter the reusing of certain items.

For example, in the case of glass bottles, which are totally recyclable, the trend in the industry is to switch to single-use bottles, especially for beverages. This is because the washing and sterilising of used bottles is not exactly a low-energy process, and this does not yet take into account the cost and energy involved in transporting the used bottle from the end user back to the bottling plant. Furthermore, there are liability issues (especially in the litigious West) to be reckoned with when reusing glass containers.

The benefits of a product being “totally biodegradable” are also overrated. In properly managed landfills, nothing ought to decompose or biodegrade as this will produce leachate, which in turn needs to be treated. As such, innovations like biodegradable plastic (and whatever else that is touted as being biodegradable) will not help much in reducing the amount of waste if they are not composted.

The fact is, being biodegradable counts for nothing if the product ends up going to the landfill. On the other hand, biodegradable products or waste (like paper, textiles, leather, garden wastes) are combustible, which suit incinerators just fine.In deciding what constitutes a “better” material (besides recyclability and biodegradability) for our daily applications, we must appreciate the concept of embedded energy (EE), which means the total sum of energy and other input needed to manufacture a product. For example, if more energy, water and money is required to reuse glass bottles for soft drinks (compared to disposable plastic bottles), then it cannot be said that glass is always an “environmentally friendlier”, or better, choice.

This does not mean that recycling has no place in modern society. Putting aside all economic barriers, the chief hindrance to the success of any recycling programme lies in the attitude of consumers. The fact is, separating all the waste generated in one's home is a cumbersome, if not unappealing, task for many. It takes significant effort to ensure that all the different types of wastes are sorted out properly.

As consumers, we must make wise purchasing decisions. Too often, we buy what isconvenient and cheap without taking into account the product’s durability (which will prevent it from becoming landfill material quickly, thus wasting more precious resources) and its overall long-term impact on the environment.

Christians need to be mindful of how their individual choices affect the environment. In dealing with the growing mound of trash, Christians have another alternative: REFUSE, adding another R to the list. In a lot of instances, this should be our first choice. By consuming less, we avoid the tough question of whether it is better to reuse or recycle, to landfill or incinerate. In the meantime, we should get acquainted with the science, economics and lifecycle of the things we consume, and not be misled by simplistic suggestions on what is better for the environment.

My book, Spiritual Formation on the Run has been selling steadily since it's launch in January this year. Many persons have been blessed by reading it and I am so happy. I pray that the Lord will continue to use the book to touch lives.

2nd print of the books arrived today.

I hope you will support the ministry by buying copies for friends to give as Christmas presents.I do not receive a single cent from my writing and publishing. The proceeds for this book goes to support the 1st Johor Bahru Boys Brigade's activities.

You can order copies from your local bookstores (it will help me if you ask them to order if they do not have stock), Amazon.com or from me via draltang@yahoo.com

Influential networks like National Geographic, Discovery and BBC Channels are propagating new portraits (or fabrications) of Jesus that distort if not contradict what Christians traditionally believe about Jesus for 2000 years.

This Kairos Public Forum seeks to explain why these TV producers rely on pagan Mystery Religions and 2nd century Gnosticism texts to reconstruct new portraits Jesus, what methods and assumptions inform the scholars who advise these media channels for their distorted views of Jesus. The Forum also offers evidence for the integrity of the New Testament Gospels as reliable historical records of Jesus’ life and ministry and critiques popular images of Christ in contemporary society.

Topics/Speakers1) The Fabricated Jesus of Contemporary TV DocumentariesSpeaker: Mr. Philip Koh(Partner of a legal firm in Kuala Lumpur and Director of Kairos Research Centre)

2) The Historical Christ of the New Testament: The Test of HistorySpeaker: Dr. Ng Kam Weng(Research Director of Kairos Research Centre)

Kairos Seminar on Jesus Christ and Early ChristianityThere will be a follow-up seminar for those who want to learn in detail how contemporary research supports the historical accuracy and authenticity of the New Testament portrait of Jesus Christ.

Monday, November 16, 2009

Lukas Lim has kindly sent us this article he wrote amidst his busy schedule doing law in Cambridge.

"… but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles…" - 1 Corinthians 1:23

Every now and then, people decide to do things that are so utterly bizarre or misguided that others can only conclude that they have lost their minds. With exasperation, they throw up their hands and ask, "what were these people thinking?" The legal term for such irrationality is "Wednesbury unreasonableness". As Lord Diplock notes in Council of Civil Service Unions v. Minister for the Civil Service Respondent :

[i]t applies to a decision so outrageous in its defiance of logic or of accepted moral standards that no sensible person who applied his mind to the question to be decided could have arrived at it. While His Lordship said those words with the executive in mind, I must admit that I read this case with God at the forefront of my mine. Turning to creation, for instance, I often wondered why God created us. What prompted Him to create human beings whom He knew would fall into sin, such that He could only save them at the highest possible cost to Himself?

The gospel did not make any sense at all; in fact, it appeared to be foolishness (1 Corinthians 1:18, 23). What was God thinking?

An Outrageous Defiance of Logic?It might be argued that God’s reasons are beyond us; that they defy all attempts at a logical explanation and that we should not attempt to make sense of the divine mystery of the unknowable God. The Biblical authority that is often quoted in support of this comes from Isaiah 55:8-9:

"For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts... "

On the other hand, we believe that we are rational beings, capable of logical thought. Any acknowledgement that God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours must therefore also be an admission that God possesses a logical and rational mind that is far superior to ours. He must therefore have had good logical reasons for the creation and redemption of humanity.

While we should accept that an infinite God will always be beyond our grasp, it is no use saying that God’s rationality is somehow beyond reason for that would be a contradiction in terms. It may certainly be beyond us as human beings , but we can at least rest assured that it is not beyond reason. However outrageous God’s decisions appear, they are not in defiance of logic. So what logical reason lay behind God’s decision to create us?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Kam Weng: "It is bad enough when the Malaysian government bans Christians from using the word Allah. It is worse when some misguided Christians (granted it is a small minority) agree that Muslims have sole proprietary rights to the word Allah, even though this capitulation amounts to surrendering their centuries old usage of the word Allah for worship and spiritual instructions.

Perhaps this capitulation results from a misunderstanding of Arabic grammar, that is, the view that Allah is a personal name. Allah, as such, refers solely to the individual Supreme Being whom Muslims (and no other believers) worship. Accepting this misunderstanding would give grounds to the Muslim’s (still contestable) demand that only they have the right to use the word Allah and its related terms.Such a capitulation must be vigorously resisted seeing how the Malaysian government unrelentingly prosecutes its ban against Christians using the word Allah. It is imperative that we analyze and correct this misunderstanding."

Alfred Tais (of NECF) while compiling documents for the SIB Allah cases came across some documents that shows the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia / Bahasa Indonesia were published earlier than 1950. For example, Matthew's Gospel was first published by Dutchman AC Ruyl in 1629. The Perjanjian Baru was published in 1668 while the Alkitab was published in 1733.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

The growth of non-Western Christianity across Africa is largely due to the New Pentecostal Churches. Upwardly-mobile youth are drawn to their dynamic worship styles and pursuit of wealth and success. The prosperity gospel has found fertile soil as it resonates with tribal religion. Prosperity promoters raise serious theological concerns. The gospel of Jesus Christ neither glorifies poverty nor prosperity.

For thousands of believers in Ghana, “Jericho Hour” is the place to be on a Thursday morning. Founded in 1998, this prayer meeting—where “giant solutions await your giant problems”—is hosted by Archbishop Nicholas Duncan-Williams in the Prayer Cathedral on Accra’s Spintex Road. Three thousand make their way there to pray for breakthroughs in business, for international travel, for a suitable spouse, and, when experiencing setbacks, for vengeance on those spiritually responsible.

It is part of a wider movement founded by Duncan-Williams in 1979. His African mentor was the late Benson Idahosa of Nigeria, who conferred upon himself the titles of “Professor” and “Archbishop.” Duncan-Williams’s personal transition from “Pastor” through unauthenticated “Rev. Dr.” to “Bishop” and now “Archbishop” is no less intriguing.

Duncan-Williams’s 26-year marriage ended in divorce in 2005 after much-publicized efforts at reconciliation mediated by the American pastor T. D. Jakes. In 2008 he married a wealthy African-American diplomat turned entrepreneur, and lives in Accra in a home which is widely described as palatial. Such lavish displays of wealth are usually the domain of politicians, who are believed to achieve their material success by stealing from the public purse. Rumor about the sources of the couple’s wealth is probably inevitable.

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Listen carefully the next time you overheard an argument in office or at home. For you may just stumble upon a powerful clue for God’s existence!

In his bestseller Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis observed that when we quarrel, we would often appeal to some higher Moral Law to which the other party is accountable. For example, it is common to hear people argue like this: “That’s my seat, I was here first”, “Give me a piece of your orange, I gave you some of mine” or “How do you like it if someone did the same to you?” Such arguments do not merely express our displeasure at someone’s behavior. They are actually appealing to a standard of right and wrong which we expect others to know about and ought to follow. Otherwise it would be as futile as claiming that a footballer had committed a foul without some agreement about the rules. This transcendent and universal Moral Law is a signpost pointing to God who is the Lawgiver.

But not everyone would agree. Popular writers such as Richard Dawkins and Robert Wright have tried to show that rudimentary forms of moral cognition can be found in animals as well. Here is a discussion on whether natural selection can account for morality as we know it available in the latest edition of Kairos Magazine.

Monday, November 09, 2009

Many Christians have only a faint idea of what God is like. However, knowledge about God is too important to be reserved for experts only. It is crucial to a proper relationship with God and the world. But how do we start? Thomas V. Morris wrote “Our Idea Of God: An Introduction to Philosophical Theology” to provide non-specialists with an accessible introduction to philosophical theology.

There are different ways of doing theology or rational discourse about God. For example, systematic theology seeks to integrate diverse biblical teachings on a given topic (i.e. God’s power) into a coherent whole. In this book, the focus is to explore a concept of God that is both biblically faithful and rationally plausible. It seeks to do so by exploring theological concepts, presuppositions and their inter-related connections through primarily the methods and tools of philosophical reflections and observations about the universe. The present review would briefly survey how the author has approached the subject and evaluate the degree in which he has achieved his objective.

Morris started Chapter 1 as a defense for the possibility that finite beings like us could have a rational discourse about God. Basically, he sought to demonstrate as logically self-defeating the skeptics’ assertions that no human concepts or language could apply to the infinite God. How could one ‘know’ that God is utterly unknowable? However, the mere possibility of thinking and talking reasonably about God does not mean we can find sure ground for confidence. In Chapter 2, the author discussed the method of how we could go about doing it. At this stage, he proposed a methodology attributed to Anselm called ‘perfect being theology’ which I would elaborate on later. Subsequently, he put this method to the test in discussing major theistic concepts like God’s goodness, power, knowledge, being, eternity and creation. In the final chapter, he sought to vindicate the particularly Christian doctrines of Trinity and Incarnation as logically possible without watering down any of the mentioned divine attributes.

The discussion on methodology is the most crucial part of his thesis that deserves further discussion. Firstly, Morris rejected the approach to develop a concept of God from every claimant to divine revelation because it offers no measuring standard for conflicting truth claims. Secondly, he explored the approach of a purely biblical theology. However, the Bible is not a philosophical theology textbook. We may ask legitimate questions for constructing a comprehensive worldview that is compatible with biblical portrayal yet not strictly confined by what it already said. Thirdly, based on the biblical portrait of God as creator, we may also do ‘creational theology’ by inferring a First Cause whose nature would be sufficient to explain the existence of the universe. However, this approach would not tell us much about God’s character or how much power is required to do so . Finally, Morris proposed the procedure called perfect being theology. Following Saint Anselm, God is described as ‘that which no greater can be conceived’ or the Being with the greatest possible combination of intrinsically good properties.

Some immediate questions that arise would be “What is greater? Is He bigger? Is power intrinsically good?” Morris explained that we would consult our ‘value intuitions’ about what these great-making properties are. Here, he is not referring to some mystical subjectivism but naturally formed belief, ‘whose acceptance does not derive entirely from linguistic convention, evidence, testimony, memory, inference or sense experience’ . For example, we intuitively know that it is wrong to torture babies for fun and that 2+2 = 4. These beliefs should be considered ‘innocent until proven unreliable’. By consulting our intuitions, could we not arrive at the concept of God as ‘a thoroughly benevolent conscious agent with unlimited knowledge and power who is the necessarily existent, ontologically independent creative source of all else’ ?

Although I have some disagreements with the favorable review on Molinism, the methodology itself to be generally helpful to vindicate, augment and develop rationally what biblical revelation has unveiled . The treatments on God’s attributes were enlightening to gain a clearer picture on, for example, what we could conceive of omnipotence. Omnipotence doesn’t mean that God could actualize contradictions inconsistent with His own nature. The author has succeeded in showing that rational discourse about God is possible and fruitful in refining such ideas. I would suggest that the last chapter on “God Incarnate and Triune” would have immense apologetic value in dialogue with Muslim neighbors in Malaysian context. At least, it would help to remove some obstacles for those who believe that these doctrines are logically impossible.

However, I wonder if the perfect being method could even get off the ground if we start by consulting value intuitions. To his credit, Morris recognized that intuitions have defeasible epistemic status. An open theist friend would mistakenly feel that the ‘ability to be surprised’ is a great-making property a relational God should have which would necessarily limit His exhaustive foreknowledge. Could not another person who felt femininity as ‘intrinsically good’ employ the method to construct a goddess instead? If not by revelation, how would we ever be able to intuitively develop a concept of Trinity or Incarnation by proceeding from perfect being theology? Gerald Bray also made this caution, “To conceive of relative greatness is to assume that the scale is open-ended; it will always be possible to conceive of something greater than the maximum” . Although Morris does recognize that perfect being theology could be corrected, complimented and augmented by creational or biblical theology, it seems that we need to be more explicit in incorporating biblical theology as its starting point and controlling presupposition.

In summary, the author has been meticulous to argue for his method and applied it in a way that restated the basic contours of classical theism in a way that is sensitive to how these concepts interact with each other. He offered many helpful illustrations to make the abstract ideas more comprehensible to the target audience. Alternative views were fairly presented and evaluated in a concise and incisive manner. I believe that this book would benefit those who would seek to complement devotional fervor with rigorous reflections about our understanding of God and His attributes.

Friday, November 06, 2009

The Bible is not a book of rules, nor a book of heroes. There's only one Hero.

“The Bible is most of all a Story… It's like the most wonderful of fairy tales that has come true in real life! You see, the best thing about this Story is--it's true! There are lots of stories in the Bible, but all the stories are telling one Big Story. The Story of how God loves his children and comes to rescue them.”

This is Christ-centered hermeneutics so simply and elegantly framed in a children storybook written by Sally Lloyd Jones and beautifully illustrated by the award winning Jago. Having browsed through a friend's copy available at Canaanland.com.my, I intend to buy one for my son too.

Here is a review from Tim Keller:”Sally has captured the plot line of redemption in a children’s story Bible that sings the praise of Jesus and his saving grace on every page, in every story... To discover The Jesus Storybook Bible is to have a unique resource for communicating the gospel to children in all it’s fullness.”

In many Sunday School lessons, biblical stories are used as moral lessons for children. "Be like Abraham, he obeys God". "Be brave like King David, he challenged Goliath". "Be strong like Samson, he wrestled with lions."

But what do we make of the parts where Abraham allow Sarah to be taken to save his own skin? Or David's famous murder of Uriah? Or Samson's downfall courtesy of Delilah?

It seems that the biblical stories took care to tell us (with brutal honesty) something not-so-clever or downright mean that these people have done. The point is not simply that they are heroes to be emulated. But they are also needy, fallen and sinful people that God loves and repeatedly saves. The overarching story is a story of grace and God is the hero who comes to the rescue. It's the gospel hidden everywhere in the entire Bible.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

"These may be some of the reasons why reading Deuteronomy presents specific challenges and also potential discouragement for Christians. Even worse, Christians sometimes speak of the Old Testament as being largely irrelevant and cite Deuteronomy as proof. Non-Christians also often take verses like those above as reasons for rejecting the ‘Old Testament God’ or for rejecting Christianity altogether.

And yet, at the end of the Pentateuch, Deuteronomy stands as an important pillar in understanding the Old Testament and is a landmark in the history of salvation, at an important point in the relationship between Israel and God.

In fact, for every generation of Christians, Deuteronomy has great blessing for the Christian in understanding God’s character, His holiness, His mercy, love, justice and His patience with a sinful people. So many of the concepts for how God relates to His people are found here in Deuteronomy that it would be a tragedy for Christians not to know how to read it."

Influential networks like National Geographic, Discovery and BBC Channels are propagating new portraits (or fabrications) of Jesus that distort if not contradict what Christians traditionally believe about Jesus for 2000 years.

This Kairos Public Forum seeks to explain why these TV producers rely on pagan Mystery Religions and 2nd century Gnosticism texts to reconstruct new portraits Jesus, what methods and assumptions inform the scholars who advise these media channels for their distorted views of Jesus. The Forum also offers evidence for the integrity of the New Testament Gospels as reliable historical records of Jesus’ life and ministry and critiques popular images of Christ in contemporary society.

Topics/Speakers1) The Fabricated Jesus of Contemporary TV DocumentariesSpeaker: Mr. Philip Koh(Partner of a legal firm in Kuala Lumpur and Director of Kairos Research Centre)

2) The Historical Christ of the New Testament: The Test of HistorySpeaker: Dr. Ng Kam Weng(Research Director of Kairos Research Centre)

Kairos Seminar on Jesus Christ and Early ChristianityThere will be a follow-up seminar for those who want to learn in detail how contemporary research supports the historical accuracy and authenticity of the New Testament portrait of Jesus Christ.